This is a little report to keep you up to date on our progress remaking The Endless Forest in Unreal. In the video you can see how we have set up several crucial pieces of logic that only need to be expanded to approach a full remake.
We have added mouse controls for navigation similar to how it works in the current game. So now we can play with either mouse or keyboard. We have also implemented camera controls that approach the original. Both need fine tuning of course.
A major part of this step has been the beginning of the button bar at the bottom of the screen that you use for making the deer do things. We had to learn about how User Interface is done in Unreal (somehow game engines always manage to make creation of UI extremely convoluted). So now we can make the deer sleep, get up, sit down and roar with the button bar dynamically responding to the context. For this we figured out how to trigger animations through button clicks and made it work over the network too (which requires quite a few steps). The roar action also involved adding morphing for the deer to open his mouth and 3D sound (the first sound in the remake is roar!). All this new knowledge will come in handy when developing things further!
At one point we managed to run a multiplayer game over both the local network and the internet. But the last time we tried it was broken again. It still works in the editor though so we will focus on other things for now. Hopefully a future update of Unreal Engine will improve how networking is done. If not, we may need some external help.
We’re quite happy with the progress we’ve made. Next month we need to focus on a commissioned project with a rather tight deadline. So the third progress report on The Unreal Forest may take a bit longer. Do keep an eye on Twitter, where we share most of what’s going on here. And don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Remaking The Endless Forest was made possible thanks to your generous contributions to the IndieGogo campaign and the private fundraiser. It is still possible to join, and get some of the cool perks like special deer outfits and 3D prints of your very own avatar.
—Michaël & Auriea
One thing I’d love to have in version 2 is an expanded control over screenshots, and being able to zoom in nice and close with my avatar. Sometimes the pelt/fx combo is too hilarious not to snapshot.
Keep up the good work!
That would be nice indeed. But first things first. We need to start with remaking the game as it is. And then we can start adding new things!